Time To Say Goodbye
by May Seward
Summary: Gina was supposed to be speaking at Jake's funeral. Not the other way around. (Post the Season 4 Winter Finale in case you couldn't tell.) Soul crushing angst. One-shot.


**A/N: Okay I know that I am supposed to be writing my Star Wars fic right now but I got distracted by writer's block after exams something seriously wicked and so binge watched all four seasons of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Of course, then I got over my writers block by writing B99 fanfic and not Star Wars. Ooops.**

 **Oh well have some serious angst in the meantime.**

* * *

This wasn't how it was supposed to end.

Jake was supposed to go down in a hail of bullets and Gina was supposed to be the one standing at his graveside, wearing her black "Gina told you so" t-shirt. She wasn't supposed to be the one lowered into the ground first. She was supposed to live forever. She was Gina Linetti, after all.

* * *

" _J-Jake, it's G-Gina..."_

 _He remembers hearing screams and sirens echoing in the background when Amy called. He had never heard her sound so scared._

 _Boyle's voice, instantly recognisable even from a distance, said something like, "I'm her brother, please-" and Jake grabbed his keys._

* * *

Just when Jake thought the day couldn't get any worse, Rosa made her way to the podium. He had watched her make a speech at Adrian's fake funeral, but this was different. He could see her fighting to keep a carefully neutral expression even from his position at the end of the front row.

"Gina Linetti was a badass," she began. Her voice broke on the first word. "She was a sister and a friend... And now she's gone." A tear rolled down her cheek and she set her jaw firmly, refusing to acknowledge it. "A life without Gina is... Well, it sucks..."

* * *

 _Rosa and Jake arrived at the hospital together. They passed the Emergency Room and after a few terse words from Jake who had to flash his NYPD badge in order to get anyone's attention, and one glowering look from Rosa, they were pointed in the right direction._

 _Upon sighting him in the hallway, Amy flew into his arms and broke down into gut-wrenching sobs. Boyle sat on the floor, back to the wall as he stared into the middle-distance. Rosa crouched so she was eye level with him. "What happened?" Jake demanded, trying to keep his cool. Amy just shook her head and buried her face in his shirt. "What happened?" he repeated, louder this time, and directed at Boyle._

" _I sent her a text..." Boyle murmured. "She was standing in the middle of the street... and she checked it right there. The bus couldn't stop in time..."_

 _Jake's stomach plummeted through the floor to China. Rosa straightened and paced the hall, hand running through her hair, eyes wide as the faintest hint of panic began to settle in. With a strangled cry, she kicked a dent in the wall._

* * *

Jake didn't hear the rest of Rosa's speech, unable to focus on anything except breathing in and out through the tightness in his chest. Amy gripped his hand so tightly he lost feeling but he welcomed her support. It grounded him, kept him from spiralling.

Then it was his turn.

* * *

 _A man in surgical scrubs came to find them a few hours later. By that time, Darlene and Lynn had made themselves comfortable in the uncomfortable chairs provided and Terry and Holt had arrived with news._

" _We talked to the law enforcement at the scene,' Terry informed them. "The bus driver has been hospitalised too. He had a seizure at the wheel. He couldn't have stopped even if he'd seen her in time under normal circumstances."_

" _Oh, god," Amy murmured._

 _The double doors behind them swung open._

" _Are you the family of Gina Linetti?"_

 _Darlene and the Boyle boys leaped up. "That's us," Charles confirmed quickly._

 _The surgeon frowned. "There's a lot of damage we haven't been able to fix yet. We fixed her broken bones and stopped the internal bleeding but there's serious swelling around the brain that needs to come down before we get any sort of idea of a prognosis."_

* * *

Amy dropped his hand as he stood, eyes on the grass below his feet. The walk towards the podium Rosa had vacated felt like a walk to the gallows. When he finally stood facing the waiting crowd, he cleared his throat and glanced down at his notes before deciding there was no way he was going to be able to read his own handwriting in his state.

"I've known Gina my whole life," he began. "She was my first best friend." He glanced over at Boyle, sat with the rest of the squad in the second row. Tears streamed down Charles' face.

"We went to school together when we were kids. There were a lot of afternoons eating junk food at nana's that just wouldn't have been the same without her. My life wouldn't -" he coughed "- _won't -_ be the same without her." Jake looked around the congregation, suddenly realising how many people there were because of Gina. Boyle's cousins took up three rows. Her mom had elected to sit with them and Lynn instead of the Linettis, which took up another row. The squad took up two more rows. It wasn't just the gang that had come to say farewell, half of the night shift had also turned up, though judging from Rosa's frequent glares in their direction, he thought their attendance was probably under duress. There wasn't an empty seat anywhere. "Looking out at you all, I'm reminded that Gina brought a lot of people together - Lynn and Darlene -" he nodded at the couple. Darlene sobbed into Lynn's shoulder. Jake shook his head clear again and continued. "She was one of those people who seemed immortal, y'know? Indestructible. Nothing ever fazed her. She was the woman who beat three teams of detectives in last year's Halloween heist. I mean, she _wasted_ us because she's just that good." Jake swallowed thickly as his vision blurred.

 _Time to say goodbye._

"I... I'm really going to miss you, Gina Linetti. The best human-slash-genius I have ever known."

* * *

 _They took shifts. Darlene and the Boyles claimed the first one as expected, but at one am Charles finally agreed to go home to Genevieve and Nikolaj and Lynn and Darlene were persuaded to return to their own bed. Rosa took their seats and watched over Gina until Amy and Jake arrived._

 _Then it all went wrong._

 _As Jake watched, Gina's hand twitched. "Hey!" he called. Amy, at the door to the hospital room, headed for work (crime doesn't stand still just because Gina Linetti isn't conscious enough to instagram it), jerked her head around quickly enough she probably sprained something. Gina's foot twitched and then her entire body started shaking. She jerked in an ugly way, like a marionette with its strings cut. Alarms blared in Jake's ears and the room flooded with doctors and nurses, all speaking a language Jake didn't seem to understand with weird latin words and numbers and colours. He was unceremoniously shoved out of his chair as a nurse pushed past him with what looked like a grey file cabinet on wheels with defibrillators on them. "No! Hey! Gina!"_

" _Get out of here!" a nurse barked at him and blue paper curtains snapped shut in front of his face._

 _Amy's warm hand grabbed his and he was dragged out of the room to the sound of a flatline._

* * *

After the funeral, Holt, Rosa and Terry left for Shaw's. Jake had no greater desire than to drink himself stupid but right now their company was too much, too painful, and so he and Amy went home to their apartment in silence.

The apartment door shut with a bang loud enough to make Amy jump. Jake, numb after the events of the day, didn't even blink, just sat down on their sofa.

"Jake..." Amy murmured quietly as she hung up their coats. He didn't answer. She moved to the kitchen cupboard and returned moments later with two tumblers and a bottle of whiskey. "Here," she said, pouring him two fingers and placing it on the coffee table. He nodded his thanks and took a large sip. "Do you want to talk?" Amy asked. Jake was going to just shake his head no but he looked up at her, still standing with a glass of whiskey in her hand, looking down at him with those big brown eyes full of tears and he realised that perhaps she _did_ want to talk. Jake wasn't the only one who had said goodbye to a friend.

So, he took a deep breath, sidled sideways to give her room to sit with him and said, "Sure."

The corners of Amy's mouth rose ever so slightly in relief and she curled up next to him, resting her head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arm around her.

She didn't talk about Gina, Jake noticed. The conversation was light, cases turned into cop movies turned into outings with the gang; memories that were untouched by overwhelming grief. Gina featured in some of them, as she always did. Her and her escapades had become such an integral part of life at the Nine-Nine that avoiding the topic entirely was impossible. After a few glasses of whiskey and a few hours of talking, though, the gnawing pain in Jake's chest became a dull ache, and his attention became more and more focused on Amy. Amy, still in her black dress from earlier, eyes glinting brightly in the gathering dark. She was onto about four drinks now, and an easy smile broke through, the kind of smile that never failed to warm his heart. He kissed her forehead and she climbed further into his lap. She kissed him softly, the sort of kiss that reminds him of safety and home and peace.

They were going to get through this, he realised as he kissed her back. He and Amy and the squad would get through this loss and come out the other side. After a while, Amy's breathing slowed gradually until she was fast asleep in his arms. Carefully, he hooked her legs over his arm and stood, carrying her into their bedroom. She sighed in her sleep as he laid her down. He joined her, both fully dressed on top of the covers and just stared at her as she slept. Everything would be okay, he decided. He would one day wake up to a world where Gina's death didn't hurt so much.

Until then, he had Amy and she had him and they both had two black dads, a white brother and a Latina sister to get them through the long days and nights ahead. That's what families do, after all.

* * *

 **A/N: I put exactly 0 planning or editing into this and I have never written anything for this fandom before (I'm very new to the fandom) so constructive criticism is very much appreciated.**


End file.
